Concrete Angel
by Traci
Summary: When a body is discovered in the desert will the victim get justice? WARNING: Sensitive issue - child abuse.


Disclaimer:  Not mine.  Belong to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer.

Rating:  PG-13 to be safe.

Category:  Drama

Spoilers:  None

Author:  Traci   traci_ann@yahoo.com

Summary:  When a body is discovered in the desert will the victim find justice?

Author's Notes:  I got the idea for this while listening to Martina McBride's 'Concrete Angel'.  It is an amazing and powerful song and I've been wanting to write a fic based on it for a long time but no ideas came to me until tonight. 

Thanks to Tracy for a quickie beta lookover.

**WARNING**:  This story is about child abuse, neglect and homicide.  It is a sensitive issue so if you feel it might upset you or offend you do not read.  I do not claim to be an expert on such issues.

Concrete Angel

Nobody knows what she's holding back

"Come on, Charlie, do your business and get back in the car."  The middle-aged man tapped his foot as he stood outside his car waiting for his black Labrador to return.  He turned to watch a passing vehicle on the dark road.  "Charlie, we're almost home.  Come on."

The dog came running back to his owner, dropping a gift at his feet.

The man gasped.

****************************

Wearin' the same dress she wore yesterday

"Man was letting his dog out when the Labrador retrieved something," Captain Brass mentioned as he led crime scene investigators Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows to the scene.  

"The scene has been compromised then," Grissom observed.

Brass stopped and looked at them.  "Lights are on the way to check the field."  Looking to the clouds, he added, "But we'd better hurry.  There's a good chance of rain at any moment."

Catherine nodded towards the man with the dog.  "I'll go talk to him."

She hides the bruises with linen and lace

Grissom crouched down beside the body.  He stared at it for a moment.  The victim was a small girl, around six years old he guessed.  Most of her face was a mixture of purple, yellow and dark blue - the color only heightened by the stained white dress she wore.  Her blonde hair was soaked with shades of red blood.  He looked to the ME on the scene.

"Consistent with pre-mortem bruising," the examiner told him.  "They are all over her body."  His eyes fell to the young victim.  "Something tells me death was better for her than life."

"Have you established a time of death?"

"Without a full examination, I would estimate sometime between three and six o'clock this afternoon."

Pulling out a pair of tweezers, Grissom removed a tiny sliver from a small gash on the girl's cheek.  He had just placed it in an evidence bag when he heard a muffled intake of air from behind him.

Catherine stood over him, seeing the girl for the first time.  "Gil."

He stood up.  "What did the man have to say?"

She stared at him for a moment, re-gathering her thoughts.  "He. He said his dog was out for about five minutes before it returned with."  Her glistening blue eyes gazed down upon the girl.  "With her."

Just then light flooded the once dark desert.  

Grissom and Catherine blinked at the offending brightness.

"The answers lie out there somewhere," he told her then walked out into the brush.

**********************

The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask

Warrick Brown and Sara Sidle followed the officer into the shamble of a home.  Torn curtains flowed in the cool night breeze.  Sara tried the light switch but nothing happened.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Sara asked the officer.

"The call came in from a neighbor claiming to have heard screaming earlier today.  One team came and checked it out around four but no one was home."

"Why are we back here?"

The officer stopped.  "Because the same neighbor broke in and found this."  He shined his flashlight into the bathroom.

Both CSI's eyes went wide.

"It looks like a slaughterhouse," Warrick commented upon seeing the walls and floor covered with blood.

****************************

It's hard to see the pain behind the mask

Dr. Robbins held the scalpel, his hand shaking slightly.  Of the countless murder victims that had passed across his autopsy table the little girl, bruised and beaten, lying there now was one of the hardest of his career.

Turning the recorder on, he wiped away a single tear and began the 'Y' incision.  "Victim appears to be between the ages of five and eight.  Time of death appears to be approximately three or three-thirty pm."  Upon completion of the incision, he pulled the skin back.  "Evidence of internal injuries."  Taking a closer look, he added.  "Two newly fractured ribs. Evidence of four previous fractures of the ribs."  Cracking the rib cage apart, he also discovered a collapsed lung.  Taking a deep breath, he pushed personal involvement to the back of his mind and continued.

**************************

Bearing the burden of a secret storm

The following day, Sara knocked on the warped wooden door of the neighbor who had called 911.

A woman answered with her young son hiding behind her.  "May I help you?"

"Are you Mrs. Woodruff?"

"Yes."

"My name is Sara Sidle and I'm with the Las Vegas crime lab.  You were the one who called in about screams coming from that house?"  She motioned to the house next door.

She nodded.  "Ben, why don't you go finish your snack in the kitchen."

The little boy looked up at Sara with sad, brown eyes before he disappeared down the hallway.

Stepping outside, Mrs. Woodruff sighed.  "Ben was friend's with the little girl who lived there.  I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon.  The police came but no one went inside."

Sara nodded.  "Have you had to call the police before?

The woman lowered her gaze to the ground.  "I, uh. I didn't want to get involved."

Sometimes she wishes she was never born

"What do you mean?"

After a long pause, the woman let out the breath she'd been holding.  "That poor little girl was horribly abused."

"How. how old was she?"

"Six.  Same age as my Ben.  She's a beautiful girl.  Long, blonde hair, the biggest blue eyes you've ever seen.  And strong.  Never once did I see her cry - not even with the bruises."  She paused again.  "It just wasn't my place to get involved.  Not until I heard those screams yesterday."

**************************

Through the wind and the rain she stands hard as a stone

With Nick Stokes away at a conference, the remaining night shift gathered around the conference room table.

"Greg's lab results on the blood at the house and the blood from your victim confirm it is the same person," Warrick said, handing out copies of the reports.

Grissom looked over the file in front of him.  "I searched the names the neighbors gave us but nothing has come up in any of our databases."

In a world she can't rise above

"I'll go talk to teachers and classmates at her school," Catherine offered softly.  "I just.  I can't believe with all the people who knew or suspected no one did anything about it."

"Warrick and I have talked to all the neighbors.  They can't offer anymore help."  Sara took a sip of coffee.  "What do you want us to do?" she asked Grissom.

"Go back to the house.  Try to find what path the mother took from there to where the body was found.  Maybe she left clues somewhere."

Sara and Warrick gathered their papers and walked out of the room.

Grissom looked over at Catherine, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet.  "Are you alright?  If you would rather I go to the school."

Her eyes met his.  "How could a mother do this to her own child?"

"We don't know for sure that."

"Gil, look at the evidence," she hissed, standing up.  "That's why these people get away with it.  The evidence is in plain site but no one wants to believe it."

"Catherine."  His tone was full of warning.

Taking a deep breath, she nodded.  "I'm okay.  This child deserves justice."

He quietly watched her leave the room.  

************************************

But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved

Amy Grosh sobbed into her hands behind her desk.

Catherine delicately looked through the little girl's desk.

"I can't."  Amy stopped and looked up at Catherine with tear-stained cheeks.  "I knew.  I saw all the signs.  Grace was such a sweet girl."

Placing the objects from the desk in a bag, Catherine walked over to the Kindergarten teacher.  "Why didn't you.?"

She reached for a tissue and wiped her eyes.  "Because if a teacher makes an accusation like that without definite proof, we are the ones who are more likely to be sued or lose our jobs"

Catherine sat down.  "What can you tell me about Grace?"

Amy smiled.  "She was so smart.  And she loved art."  She got up and pulled a pictured down from the wall, handing it to Catherine.  "She drew this one day after school for me."

In Catherine's hands, she held a crayon drawing of a home full of smiling children with a rainbow over it.

Sitting back down, Amy told her, "She told me that all children deserved to be happy and she drew them a place to be happy in."  Biting her lower lip, she sniffed.  "Tell me her mother is going to stay in prison."

"We haven't been able to locate her."  Catherine handed the picture back to her.  

*************************

Somebody cries in the middle of the night

"I. I gave her one of my walkie-talkies so we could talk when everyone was sleeping," Ben told Warrick.  "She cried a lot.  No one knew but me.  She. she didn't want anyone to know."

"Do you remember any times that were worse than others?"

Ben looked to his mother then nodded.  "The night before. before she went to heaven.  She told me her mom had passed out.  She was worried about her.  She. she loved her mom."

Ben's mother wiped away tears while Warrick tried to ignore his building anger at the situation.

"I went and looked out the window.  My window faces hers.  She stood in the window but her face."  Tears filled the little boys eyes.  "It was red and swollen.  And she smiled at me."

His mother took his hand in her own.

"I told her to leave and come over here but she wouldn't.  She wanted to make sure her mom was okay."

The neighbors hear but they turn out the lights

"She's in a better place now.  She's not in pain anymore," Ben whispered as his mother engulfed him in her arms.

**************************

Through the wind and the rain

The funeral was held a week after finding Grace.

The wind howled as heavy drops of rain pelted the dry ground.  Catherine bit back tears at the site of the tiny white coffin.  Without a second thought, the entire night shift CSI as well as Dr. Robbins and Captain Brass and countless friends and strangers had gathered together to lay the battered child to a peaceful rest.

She stands hard as a stone

"A special place is made in Heaven for children such as Grace," the priest told the mourners.  "While we here on earth may not understand God's plan when such evil occurs, we may rest assured in the knowledge that Grace is smiling down upon us.  Friends and strangers brought together by this tragedy, perhaps with new friendships and new awareness of the tragedy that Grace lived with during her short life.  An angel has left this physical earth but has made Heaven a more blessed place."

Before the coffin was lowered into the cold ground, Ben broke free from his mother's grasp and gently placed a white rose atop it.  

In a world she can't rise above

"You finally have peace," he whispered.

But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved.  Concrete angel

**********************

A statue stands in a shaded place

Slowly a shrouded person walked to the new grave, stopping before it with shoulders hunched.

An angel girl with an upturned face

Gazing up at the large angel statue marking the resting place, the stranger's hood fell away and the woman beneath it fell to her knees sobbing.

A name is written on a polished rock

Shaky fingers reached out and traced the name 'Grace Jansen'.  Beneath the name was written, 'God's Angel Now'.

The woman curled up against the marker and continued to weep, crying out, "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."

A broken heart that the world forgot

************************

Through the wind and the rain she stands hard as a stone

Brass knocked on Grissom's office door.

He peered up at his friend over his glasses.  "What is it?"

"We found Grace's mother."

In an instant Grissom was out of his chair and heading toward the interrogation room.

**********************

In a world that she can't rise above

Sunken, hollow eyes met Grissom's as he walked into the room with Brass.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.  "I'm so sorry."

"Being sorry didn't help Grace," Brass coldly told her.

"I didn't deserve her."

"No, you didn't," Grissom matter-of-factly stated.  "What happened that day?"

"I. I don't remember much.  She had just come home from school."  The woman smiled.  "She always went to school.  She came home and. I don't even remember what she asked me.  She asked me something and I don't even remember."  She sniffed back more tears.  "It was as if I wasn't even in my body when I was. was hitting her.  I saw the blood.  So much blood, but I couldn't stop."

"The abuse started long before that night," Brass pointed out, showing her the autopsy report.

She nodded.  "I know.  I should have. given her up.  I should have."  She shook her head, unable to continue.

Two officers came in and immediately handcuffed her while Brass read her her rights.

**********************************

But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved

"How's Lindsey?" Warrick asked Catherine as the nightshift team sat in the break room.

She smiled.  "Good.  Getting sick of me hugging her so much though."

Warrick smiled.  

Nick sat on the couch beside Sara.  "I don't mean to sound cold but I'm glad I wasn't here for that case," he softly told his friends.

"That doesn't sound cold," Sara said.  "It sounds human."

Grissom walked into the room seconds later.  "Brass just called.  They are going for life.  Charging her with murder, abuse, neglect and, as he said, anything else they can get her on."

"I was just thinking," Catherine began.  "How many times have we looked the other way?"

Grissom took a seat in a chair beside her at the table.

"How so?" Nick asked.

"When investigating cases.  How many times have we questioned witnesses who we know are guilty of abuse but because it's not part of the case we just walk away?"

Sara nodded.  "I couldn't believe how many of Grace's neighbors knew about the abuse."  She glanced at Catherine.  "Even her teachers from what you found and yet no one, not one person reached out to help this child, aside from Ben."

Grissom studied his team for a moment.  "We can't save the world.  We do what we can."

"But is it enough?" Catherine asked, getting up from her chair and quietly leaving the room.

Grissom found her staring at a picture of her own daughter taped to her locker.  Sitting beside her on the bench, he said, "Why don't you take some time and spend it with Lindsey."

"Gil, that wasn't what I meant back there."

"What do you want to do?"

Her eyes met his.  "Maybe we."  She shook her head and looked away.

"Maybe we. what?"

"I know many police officers and other public officials volunteer their time with organizations and maybe we. or at least I could do that.  After what we saw with Grace I just don't think I can act as if it isn't out there anymore."  She wiped away a tear.

He smiled at her.  "Actually the higher ups have been after me about community involvement.  Maybe this is something we could do."

"It needs to be a team decision," she told him.

"I'm sure they won't have a problem with it."  

They sat together in companionable silence before Grissom got up.  "I have some paperwork I have to do.  Are you going to be alright?"

Looking up at him, she nodded with a small smile.  "I will be."

The End

If you are a victim of or suspect child abuse with someone don't wait until it's too late.  Contact Child Help at http://www.childhelpusa.org or another organization or call the National Hotline at  1-800 -4 -A - CHILD (1-800-422-4453).


End file.
